Bad news for would-be first Indian space tourists

India’s Express News Service reported last week that Santhosh George Kulangara is under investigation by India’s Income Tax Department for possible tax evasion. Kulangara, managing director of Labour India Group Publications, is also frequently identified as India’s first space tourist since he is one of Virgin Galactic’s first 100 customers, aka “Founders”. He was not at home or work at the time of the raids: the “travel freak” was on an expedition to Antarctica, according to the report.

Who will be flying this trio? PanAero, on its “Space Van 2010″. There is a PanAero, but the company never progressed beyond vehicle concepts and its founder, Len Cormier, passed away last June. The article also claims that PanAero “got approval from NASA” last week, another giant red flag.

It’s not clear whether Patel has fallen for some scheme or he’s knowingly promoting something that isn’t going to happen. What is clear, though, is that Daily News and Analysis, the Indian site that published this report, doesn’t have much of a factchecking department.

5 comments to Bad news for would-be first Indian space tourists

-Probably India is a lot more business-friendly than Obamerica. For that matter China has no capital gains taxes. zip. zero. So we should be looking for a lot more legit investors and passengers from those countries, when they catch up with New Space notions, which may be a few years yet.

Even if China is more capitalist than we are now, it _is_ an authoritarian country. Though Obama is working to catch up, so we can have the worst of both worlds.